


After the End

by wvwv



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Gen, Harrow the Ninth Spoilers (Locked Tomb Trilogy), The People's Tomb Fic Jam: Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26650669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wvwv/pseuds/wvwv
Summary: Coronabeth was still convinced it was a dream when Camilla the Sixth shook her awake.After the events of Canaan House, Coronabeth Tridentarius can't move on.
Relationships: Camilla Hect & Coronabeth Tridentarius, Coronabeth Tridentarius & Ianthe Tridentarius
Comments: 12
Kudos: 34





	After the End

**Author's Note:**

> This is a lot more uplifting/less angsty than I thought it would be. Unfortunately, it also has a lot less to do with dreams than I thought too. Ah well, I tried lol

Coronabeth was still convinced it was a dream when Camilla the Sixth shook her awake. This couldn’t possibly be her reality—alone with a humourless Sixth House cavalier and two bodies on a dingy shuttle a zillion miles from Nine Houses space.

She spent every night cycle dreaming she was back in a time when things made _sense_ , when she had a purpose, a use. Then she woke up so certain that she was back on the Third, ready to leap out of bed and drag Ianthe out of whatever library she’d burrowed into. She had to socialize _sometimes_ , and no one would give her trouble if Corona were with her—only for reality to reassert itself with a sickening lurch in the form of Camilla Hect’s flat stare and the vaguely alarming _clunk_ ing deep within the walls of the aging shuttle. She’d lost count of how many nights she’d slept without her sister now.

“Let’s go. Time to get up.”

Camilla was, as ever, unmoved by Coronabeth’s misery, pushing her to get through their morning tasks before breakfast was brought to them. Corona sponged down Gideon the Ninth’s body on autopilot (aggressively ignoring Ianthe’s eyebrows waggling in her mind), while Camilla frowned over Judith’s IV fluids and changed the bandages across her abdomen with crisp efficiency.

After those two were taken care of, Coronabeth cleaned Camilla’s shoulder wound and replaced the bandages under the Sixth’s critical gaze. Corona could just picture Ianthe’s smirk if she could see her now. _Look at the pretty princess playing nursemaid!_ Corona clenched her jaw and pulled Camilla’s bandage tighter than strictly necessary to tie it. Camilla diplomatically refrained from comment.

They were still on the same shuttle that had taken them off Canaan House, locked in a makeshift hospital-prison. The rebels didn’t trust them with their home base yet. Coronabeth didn’t blame them. Judith shouted herself hoarse that the Blood of Eden were all heretics and criminals whenever she was lucid, Camilla demanded information without being willing to give up any about herself in return, and Coronabeth… had nothing of value to offer even if she cared to.

Corona wasn’t sure what the rebels were planning to do with them. The captain of the ship, a cheerful but no-nonsense woman, had said she wouldn’t bring them back to the rebel base or reveal any confidential information until they were vetted. The captain wanted them to offer up all the knowledge they had on the Emperor and the Nine Houses to compare with information she already had to determine if they could be trusted. Camilla wanted the rebels to give her the information they had on the Nine Houses before deciding whether to offer anything in return, so she and the captain were at an impasse.

Apparently satisfied with Corona’s work, Camilla took the small bag from around her neck and placed it on their lunch table. She went to stand in the middle of their cramped little room and began a series of stretches, focusing mostly on warming up her arms to try and maintain the range of motion for her injured shoulder. Coronabeth sat on her cot and idly divided her attention between Camilla and a rusty stain on the metal wall across from her. She was unsure if it was old blood or actual rust. Neither was a particularly encouraging option.

Coronabeth used to work out every day, before, but she didn’t have much of a reason to do anything anymore. There was nothing she had to train _for_. As a result, all her beautifully sculpted muscles had more or less deflated. Give her a few more weeks and she’d look like a curly-haired Ianthe.

Camilla drew her twin swords from the scabbards on her back, a slow controlled motion in deference to her injury. The captain had left them all their weapons, though Corona had brought nothing. Camilla had her two swords, Judith clung to Marta’s rapier, and even Gideon the Ninth’s sheathed black rapier was laid out beside her like a teddy bear next to a sleeping child. Corona thought leaving all of them armed was stupid of the rebels. Perhaps it was a loyalty test. Or perhaps their sorry group just didn’t look like much of a threat. That was a mistake when it came to Camilla at least.

Watching Camilla with a sword, even wounded, was vastly more interesting than the suspicious stains around the room. She didn’t have much—if any—formal training, that was obvious, but there was a certain grace to the lightning-flash fury of her every move. Even her unornamented swords looked beautiful when wielded with such single-minded purpose. Coronabeth found herself captivated all the way up until Camilla, sweating and winded, had finished her training.

Once the survivors of Canaan House were dealt with (“Generous use of ‘survivors,’” Ianthe would’ve said), Camilla the Sixth turned to the dead. Camilla pulled on a pair of disposable medical gloves from the shelf next to Judith’s bed and went back to the table. She cupped the scruffy little bag in her hand and gently pulled out the skull fragment to inspect it—for imperfections, presumably, or to make sure the glue was holding. Coronabeth never asked. Camilla did this little ritual sometimes, following no schedule that Coronabeth could determine. Camilla stared at her morbid little art project so intently that Corona fancied it might shatter right back into a million tiny pieces. It didn’t, of course. Camilla the Sixth had been exacting and unwavering as she’d mended it.

Coronabeth studied the Sixth’s expression. Her dark eyes were intense, and there was an edge of ragged desperation about her that Coronabeth supposed was understandable, given the circumstances. She looked at all that was left of the Master Warden with a manic sort of conviction.

Rage flared white-hot in Coronabeth’s chest, with an abruptness that took her by surprise. She _hated_ Camilla the Sixth. She hated that little scrap of skull. She hated the certainty Camilla had in her importance to the dead Master Warden. And she hated Marta Dyas’s sword, still clutched in Judith’s hands even while she was unconscious. She hated everyone and everything on this stupid ship.

Corona could have brought some of Ianthe’s things with her when they left the First House—clothes, jewelry, books—but what would’ve been the point? Ianthe had never cared about any of them, had never cared about anything. Corona had once thought herself the sole exception, at least sometimes, but, well.

So, she didn’t take anything with her. Some worthless trinket wouldn’t give Coronabeth any more meaning or importance; it would just be more weight she had to carry around.

Corona shook her head to distract herself from being completely consumed by Ianthe. She refocused her attention on the piece of skull in Camilla’s hands.

“I don’t think you’ll find anything wrong with it,” Coronabeth said lightly, shoving her feelings into a metaphorical dungeon in her mind. “You did good work putting it back together.”

Camilla grunted, but otherwise ignored Coronabeth in favour of her examination.

Coronabeth resumed her own examination of the dark stain on the wall, weirdly stung by the rejection.

It occurred to Corona that this was the first time in her life that she was surrounded entirely by people who weren’t charmed by her. They disliked her, even! People had always been the one thing Corona was good at, the one thing Ianthe needed her for. It seemed fitting somehow that after Ianthe decided she had no use for Corona that everyone else would follow suit.

The door smashed into the wall with a _crack_. Coronabeth jolted out of her thoughts and swung her head around.

“Breakfast time!”

The captain of the rebel ship, a small, lean woman who wore a gun at her hip instead of a sword, stood in their doorway with a crooked grin and a tray bearing two bowls of gruel. Coronabeth must’ve been too distracted to hear the door unlock. She glanced back at Camilla, but the Sixth cavalier looked as unruffled as ever, and she’d already returned the Master Warden to his place around her neck in the nanosecond Coronabeth had looked away.

“Sorry about the door, I always forget how light this one is.”

The captain strode across the room, leaving the door wide open behind her. She was either certain that they wouldn’t try to escape or hoped that they would, so she’d have an excuse to put them all out of their misery.

Coronabeth joined Camilla at the table as the captain set the tray down.

“How are all the injuries doing?” the captain asked, peering over at the two hospital beds, but not moving to approach.

“Stable,” Camilla said.

“Yours too?”

Camilla nodded, rolling her shoulder.

“Need any supply top-ups?”

Camilla shook her head no.

“Good! On to business! I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you know what I want from you by now,” the captain said, still addressing Camilla, the de facto leader of their ragtag group.

“I won’t give up anything on my House or the other participants at Canaan House, and I don’t know anything useful on the Emperor or the Cohort,” Camilla said bluntly. Her sharp eyes had been pinned to the captain since she’d entered. “Ask for something else.”

“As I’ve said before,” the captain said, unbothered but unyielding, “we need proof that you aren’t going to take all the information we’ve fought for over the years and deliver it directly to your Emperor. If you expect us to give up sensitive information, we’re gonna need a little insurance.”

They hadn’t been on the ship for that long, but it was already an old argument. And both sides were immovable.

Coronabeth started to zone out when, unlike the last hundred times, this time Camilla tilted a hard, flat look at Coronabeth. Corona would have almost called it beseeching if it weren’t so… resigned. Like she was requesting backup as a formality and was already disappointed by Corona’s performance.

It was annoyance that ultimately spurred Coronabeth to speak.

“I can tell you about the Third House. And I wasn’t in the Cohort, but I’ve spent a lot of time around people who have been; I can tell you what they’ve said about it. Will that do?”

She almost laughed at the look of stoic surprise on Camilla’s face. Why _not_ tell them everything? The only person she cared about was long gone from the Third House.

“That certainly sounds like it might,” the captain said, eyebrows raised. This was the first time Coronabeth had spoken to her without being asked a direct question first.

Coronabeth said, “I’m not saying I’ll join you. I just want to hear you out.” More importantly, she wanted to _stop_ hearing out the same argument between Camilla and the captain until she died of old age stuck on this damn ship.

“That’s all I ask. I’ll give you two a few minutes to eat and then I’ll come back with some of my crew so we can talk.” The captain regarded Coronabeth seriously. “Thank you for being willing to negotiate. You won’t regret this. Your Empire is not what it seems, and your God is more of a danger to you than you can imagine.”

Coronabeth felt the slow cold creep of dread as the captain left them to their breakfast. She stared at the captain until the door was shut and locked, and then she stared at the door instead. Did the rebels just think he was dangerous because they were on opposite sides of a war, or did they have something more substantial backing up the statement? More importantly, what did that mean for Ianthe, as one of God’s newest Hands? Her thoughts raced as she tried to draw conclusions from absolutely no information.

Despite everything, Coronabeth felt excitement start to bubble under her skin. The beginnings of purpose were starting to take shape in her mind, and she found herself eager to meet with the rebels to get all the information she could from them.

When she looked back to the table, she found Camilla eating her breakfast and looking just a little bit too satisfied, and she wondered if she had somehow planned this. She looked away, flustered, and her eyes caught on a flash of light reflecting on something over by the hospital beds.

Realising what it was, Coronabeth jumped up and, ignoring Camilla’s questioning eyebrow quirk, crossed the room to Gideon Nav’s bed. She reached out a hand and hesitated. Well, she figured Gideon didn’t have much use for it at the moment.

“Hope you don’t mind if I borrow this, Ninth,” she said and plucked the rapier from Gideon’s side.

Coronabeth didn’t know who she’d end up siding with, the rebels or the Emperor, but it didn’t matter. Maybe she hadn’t been what Ianthe needed at Canaan House, but she could still be useful, she could still help. She’d get as close as she had to with these rebels and learn all she could from them to help Ianthe. She had to be strong enough to survive, no matter what happened.

Coronabeth turned back to the table, black sword held tight in her hands.

“Camilla the Sixth,” Coronabeth said, feeling more like herself than she had since Ianthe’s ascension, “will you train with me? After the meeting, that is.”

Camilla actually smiled at that, just the barest tilt of the corners of her mouth. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Coronabeth’s answering smile felt like the sun rising. Corona knew her lifespan was finite. It was time to stop dreaming about a past that was dead and gone, about a future that could never exist. It was time to wake up and start moving forward.


End file.
